As I zip through the television stations, moving quickly from unwatchable programme to unwatchable programme, my eyes sometimes light for a second or two on the talentless Keith Lemon, and I'm reminded of ... Jimmy Savile.

Just thinking.
The ubiquitous Gary Barlow - do I detect a pattern?
Cosying up to royalty; Crony of bullying right-wing Prime Minister; collector (incipient) of honours.
Could this be the new Jimmy Savile?

Ed Sheeran

Agyness Deyn.

Britain's foreign office minister, Ivan Lewis, told MPs: "Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the natural growth of existing settlements, and dismantle all outposts erected since March 2001."

Britain's foreign minister? I've never heard of him. Why isn't he telling the Israelis that they should stop the land grab?

I note that Lucy Pinder is the first celebrity to be ejected from the Big Brother house. Just one question: who is Lucy Pinder?

How strange! Yesterday I opened my paper and my prayers were answered. The first thing I saw was a photograph of a couple identified as Tom Cruise and his wife Katie Holmes. How is it that I never heard Mr. Cruise's name mentioned along with the lady's?
So no subliminal message, apart from, "These people are important to you. You must take an interest in them". I suppose it's human being as brand.

Also, in the same edition, an opening salvo against the greenwash industry. A weekly column is promised exposing all the lies, and all the dodges. Then I open the paper this morning and am greeted by a full page advert by Captain Ahab (*$$), scourge of the third world. In it the captain defines "sustainable" as = "good". This may be a corrective to the previous day's article which declared "sustainable" to be one of those meaningless words favoured by the greenwashers. The Captain also boasted of his cooperation with those saviours of the planet, Conservation International.
Sat sapienti.

Deripaska, a name I'd heard and that's about all. Russian, filthy rich, sniffing around Arsenal, no doubt bent as a poker.
Well it seems we're going to hear a lot more about this gent for a while, so I looked him up on wikipedia, and linked to his entry.

On the subject of names that are just that, something puzzles me. There is always a name kicking around that seems to have no person attached to it, at least as far as I'm able to discern. The current non-person is Katie Holmes. Who or what is Katie Holmes? Could be a film or a book for all I know. Could be a real person or fictional. All I know is, not a day passes but that I hear the name, but never hear anything else. It's like that Derren Brown act, where he plants words in people's minds, to be activated later as behavioural prompts. Maybe one day I'll be walking round a store, see some product emblazoned with the words "Katie Holmes", and I'll feel an urge to buy it.
Of couse I could just look the name up on the net, as I did with Mister Deripaska, but I'm playing along, anticipating the outcome.
A previous name that kept occuring and recurring was Hannah Montana. I now know that this is a fictional character used by Disney to gouge money out of kids, but for a long time I kept hearing this name without a clue as to its meaning. I did realise, however, that I needn't concern myself as I wasn't part of the target audience.
Soon the mission of Katie Holmes will be revealed to me, by which time the hucksters will be peddling another name-in-isolation.
I suppose I should accept that, if I have to be told who or what these names represent, I'm just not in the swim, in the loop, up to snuff, or ... (whatever the correct term is).